


eyes wide open

by strawberriez8800



Category: Peaky Blinders (TV)
Genre: Canon Divergence, Developing Relationship, M/M, Pining, Series 4 Episode 6, Tommy/Alfie/Tenderness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-19
Updated: 2020-06-19
Packaged: 2021-03-04 01:20:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,399
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24805333
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/strawberriez8800/pseuds/strawberriez8800
Summary: Tommy knows Alfie is no longer of this world. He shot him with his own gun and the bullet went clean through his skull. He thinks so, anyway.But Alfie visits him at Arrow House one day, alive and well and Tommy has never been so relieved—god, he's relieved.Series 4, Episode 6 canon-divergence.
Relationships: Tommy Shelby/Alfie Solomons
Comments: 16
Kudos: 83





	eyes wide open

**Author's Note:**

  * For [keine_angst](https://archiveofourown.org/users/keine_angst/gifts).



> Yet another spin on 4x06, because I have way too much fun with it. I hope you enjoy this!

It’s surprising—how much Tommy thinks about Alfie even when the latter is no longer of this world.

Tommy knows Alfie is no longer of this world because it was Tommy’s own bullet that took him from it. Saw it with his own eyes. He knows this.

But sometimes the lines between what Tommy knows and what he thinks smear. He doesn't mind though, not as much as he ought to; in Warwickshire, away from the city and its smog and blood and violence, what he knows and what he thinks can be one for all he cares because, here, he is untouchable.

He thinks of Alfie in quiet moments, when he’s in the garden with a glass of whiskey, when he’s out by the creek with a fishing rod and a cigarette, and sometimes, when the moon lingers high in the starry sky and Tommy is lying in bed with nothing but whispers and screams in his mind for company.

He thinks of Alfie and his voice, his betrayals and begrudging friendship. He thinks of the possibilities, of what his resting days would look like if he had someone—Alfie, perhaps, to share them with.

Fanciful and absurd, of course.

(But it's amusing. And it makes him forget. Where's the harm in that?)

He doesn’t miss Alfie, not in the way one might miss a dearly departed.

He thinks of Alfie, but he doesn’t miss him.

* * *

The first time Tommy sees Alfie since Margate, it's three weeks after on a clear, brisk morning. Tommy has finished tending to Fire, a chestnut mare he recently acquired to shorten his days. She's a nervous one, and he hopes to ease her into the new way of life before long.

"Have never understood horses. A bunch of skittish fuckers they are," Alfie says when Tommy is half-way through his second cigarette by the stables. He joins Tommy at his side, peering at the horses with more distaste than anything else, and it's as if not a day has passed since Tommy saw him at the pier.

(He wonders how this is possible, and amidst his wonder and disbelief and confusion, there is a relief that surges above all else. So much so that the crushing weight in his chest fades, a weight that Tommy didn't quite notice until it's going, going—gone.)

Alfie is alive, and he seems fascinated at Tommy's silent incredulity. "Ah, did you miss me so much that my visit renders you speechless, Tommy? Good to know."

Tommy hears his words, yet he doesn't understand them because—"I killed you," he says, feeling the descent of a scowl. "What—what are you doing here?"

"What am I doing here? Now, is this a way to treat a good friend like yours truly," Alfie says, and his lips twitch once like he's verging on a sardonic laugh. "Retirement bores me, mate. The hell was I supposed to do besides watch ships and seagulls?"

"I killed you," Tommy says again.

Alfie stares at him for a moment, and he laughs, quiet and quick. "Fuck me. You actually believe you shot me. "

"Because I fucking did, Alfie."

Something between pity and amusement casts itself like a shadow on Alfie's face. "You need help, mate. You needed help _yesterday._ Look at yourself for crying out loud."

Tommy doesn't know what the hell Alfie is on about, because his head is clear as fucking glass and he doesn't need any help. "Margate then, what was that, Alfie? What the _fuck_ was that?"

Alfie frowns at him, like he can't quite fathom Tommy's question. Then he says, slowly, as if parsing the logic for Tommy—"We met at the pier, and you acted like a little girl, didn't you, couldn't pull the fucking trigger." He studies Tommy with careful eyes. "After your embarrassing display of sentimentality, right, we parted ways with the same number of bullets in our guns as we'd come with, and that, Tom, was the biggest joke of all. So now, here we are."

Tommy stares at the spread of pasture before them, taking a sharp puff of his cigarette. Maybe if the smoke burns fast and hot and bitter enough then everything will start to make sense.

Beside him, Alfie adds, "It's concerning that I had to explain all of this to you, mate."

Tommy crushes his cigarette beneath his boot and starts to walk back to Arrow House.

"Leaving already I see," comes Alfie's voice behind him.

"Go home, Alfie," Tommy says without looking back.

It seems Alfie does go home after all, back to Margate and its warm sand and cold waves, because Tommy doesn't see him for the rest of the week.

* * *

Tommy's encounter with Alfie at the stables is all that lingers as he turns it over in his head, again and again.

He doesn't know how it can be. He killed Alfie. He knows this.

(He _knows_. Not thinks. Knows.)

Yet he saw Alfie in Warwickshire weeks after he should've been put into the fucking ground, and—god, Alfie was so tangible and true and _there_.

Today, Alfie is back again. This time he's waiting in Tommy's study, poring over Tommy's collection of books on the shelves. There's a pipe in his hand with smoke that smells like lemongrass and pine.

"How did you get in here?" Tommy knows it's a needless question; of course Frances let him in...

"I broke in, didn't I. You've got to keep your windows locked, mate." Alfie grins, and Tommy shakes his head.

Tommy grants himself a glass of whiskey and doesn't bother to offer Alfie any. He sits behind his desk, leaning back on his chair as he watches Alfie pry a book from a shelf and skim through it idly. Tommy vaguely recognises the cover, but can't place its name.

"What do you want, Alfie?"

Alfie doesn't look up from the pages when he says, "From you? Fuck all." He puts the book back in place.

After picking out another novel—Tommy doesn't care to see which it is—Alfie makes himself at home on the armchair in the corner of the room, and starts reading. Sighing, Tommy gives up on trying to wheedle an answer out of Alfie, and sifts through his pile of unopened letters. Letters he ought to feed to the flames, really, because he has retired, and retired men do not burden themselves with letters.

Tommy rings for Frances and asks her to bring tea for two.

"My friend here doesn't like whiskey or rum or gin." With his half-empty glass he gestures towards Alfie, who's reading and humming an obscure tune.

She glances at Alfie, hesitant, or perhaps uneasy. People have always been on edge around Alfie; it seems, even after retiring, such a fact has not changed. "Yes, Mr Shelby," she says after a pause, and leaves the room.

"She doesn't like me," Alfie says after Frances has gone out of earshot.

Despite himself, Tommy smiles a little. "You're not very likeable."

Alfie smirks. "I'd wager, yeah, that she still thinks I'm the Jew who's only doing her master's bidding until the day comes when I put a knife in his back."

Although Alfie's past treacheries no longer feel like ashes in Tommy's mouth, he says, lightly, "You're waiting for the day, is that it? Again."

"Nah," Alfie says as he flips a page, and Tommy wonders if he's even reading. "That was all—that was all business, wasn't it, Tom. And now we're both tucked away at places where the smell of shit and smog doesn't reach, right, there's no business to be done."

"I can rest easy then," Tommy says dryly.

"Mhmm." Beneath Alfie's beard, there's a hint of a smile.

They don't say much else for the rest of the afternoon, with Tommy writing to letters that need answering and Alfie reading for what seems like no reason other than to pass the time. At some point, Frances returns with a tray of teacups and a steaming pot. Tommy dismisses her and pours two cups of tea, tea that marks the crossing from a truce to something that feels almost like companionship.

(Tommy is surprised to realise he is enjoying this. Wants this, even. He pushes the thought away and lets himself have the moment.)

Later, when the sun dips close to the horizon, Alfie goes home, and Tommy tries to ignore the way Arrow House now feels a little colder in his wake.

* * *

"Fucking gruesome," Alfie says, lips twisting in distaste at the carp Tommy has just reeled in.

It screams in silence for air until Tommy slashes his knife across its brain. Blood stains his hands. The fish falls limp and Tommy lets out a breath. The metal hook remains caught in its lip, metal and red and mud glistening in the afternoon sun.

"Killing helpless animals for sport. Does it tickle your fancy, Thomas?" Alfie says as Tommy extracts the hook from the carp.

"No," Tommy says as he lets the fish bleed out onto the riverbank. When it's drained, Tommy tosses its body into the bucket.

It's a strange thing. To see Alfie's disgust at the scene before them when they've both taken lives with less mercy at hand. But none of those killings were for sport, even if the lives had been human; perhaps this makes all the difference.

(Frankly, Tommy doesn't think fishing is all too awful—not compared to shooting game like toffs seem to revere. Nonetheless.)

After Tommy cleans up the mess, they walk back to Arrow House from the creek. The sun is clear of any clouds as it bears down on the land and warms his back, and Alfie is telling Tommy one of his stories borne from his misadventures in Camden Town, a story Tommy remembers hearing in the past.

He almost tells Alfie this, but he chooses to listen instead.

Tommy focuses on the sound of Alfie's voice. It's lively, without a hint of worry or burden from their past lives. It's pure, and Tommy wants follow the cadence of his words like a fish wants to swim along a crystal clear stream.

It alarms him, this sudden yearning. Tommy swallows it down.

(Even if Tommy would never admit this aloud or to himself, he thinks about Alfie's voice at night, his face, his hands, his breath. Because the thought of Alfie envelopes Tommy in a warmth he's never found anywhere else, and that—that is terrifying.)

When they reach the house, Charlie is playing outside, with Frances watching over him. At their approach, Charlie pauses and runs over to Tommy with a wooden toy horse in his hand.

"Look what Frances found at the shops," he says, beaming.

"That's great, boy," Tommy says, before remembering Alfie is beside him. He introduces Charlie to Alfie, but the child only stares at Alfie and clings to Tommy's leg. "He's shy," Tommy mumbles to Alfie.

"Children," Alfie says with a smile, shrugging, when Charlie runs back to Frances with his toy and continues to play in the sun. "One day, perhaps."

* * *

On days where the sun shines and the birds sing, this is what they do when Alfie visits from Margate: they explore the countryside, with Tommy in the driver's seat while Alfie goes on with his tales and rambles and jokes; they golf, and although Tommy knows better than anyone that golf is awfully boring, he also knows nothing is ever quite boring whenever Alfie is involved; they sit in the garden, where they smoke and talk and drink—tea, of course, because Alfie doesn't like alcohol and Tommy tolerates tea.

On days where the rain falls and the winds rip through the land, they spend the hours in Tommy's study, with Alfie making his way through the books on Tommy's shelves while Tommy responds to letters or naps in his chair with the cigarette half-burning on his ashtray.

And the days go by, swimming in and out of focus, until Tommy almost forgets how life was like before Alfie.

It scares him, but somehow he doesn't think it's a bad thing.

Either way, he tries not to dwell on it.

Today is a day where the sun shines and the bird sings. Tommy is grooming Fire at the stables, talking softly to her as he brushes her coat. She lets him touch her these days, and Tommy no longer feels the tension in her muscles when he runs his hands over her.

Alfie is watching from the door, and Tommy asks, "Do you want to touch her?"

Scoffing, Alfie says, "Fuck no."

"Try," Tommy says regardless.

Alfie remains where he is for a long moment, brows pulled into a frown, before he relents to his curiosity and walks slowly up to Tommy and Fire.

The mare is relaxed; thus, Tommy tells Alfie to present his hand to let her get a smell of him. Alfie does, and Fire doesn't seem to mind him. Tommy says that she likes firm strokes along the neck, or on her face, and demonstrates to Alfie.

"Gentle but firm," Tommy says, feeling a smile tug at his lips at Alfie's subdued apprehension.

Before long, Alfie is petting Fire with an expression that suggests he is ready to leap away at the slightest stir. "I still don't understand horses," Alfie mutters to himself, but Tommy hears him anyway.

They remain like this for a while, with Alfie bridging the gap between Fire and himself and Tommy watching them—Alfie, mainly. The afternoon sunlight peeks into the stables and falls across his face in a way that makes him look ethereal.

Ethereal.

It's an odd description to associate with Alfie, but Tommy finds it fitting here. Tommy stands beside him, a little closer now, though Tommy doesn't know when he shifted. Alfie exists like a contour of heat beside him, familiar and comforting and enchanting, and Tommy wants to lean into it.

He doesn't.

But he puts his hand over Alfie's, the one still on Fire's neck, and he imagines he looks as startled as Alfie does at the touch, but neither of them move, and Tommy closes his fingers around Alfie's.

His hand is warm, rough, secure, and Tommy wonders why Alfie doesn't pull away; maybe Alfie is letting his hand stay for the horse, or maybe he feels the tug of the string between them just like Tommy does.

It's like taking a lungful of fresh air after holding his breath underwater. It's like reaching the end of a blinding fog and finally seeing what's in front of him and god, this lucidity—it's a marvel.

And Tommy finds that he wants to be touched, wants to touch Alfie, to keep his hold on him because against all odds he feels like home. Like the fire to a hearth. Like the moon to the tide.

Tommy realises that neither of them has said anything, and he lets go of Alfie's hand, gently. They don't look at each other, barely even acknowledges the other's presence until they are out of the stables and the door is closed behind them.

In the full sunlight nothing seems true. They linger without a word, and it's rather unlike Alfie to have nothing to say. Tommy wishes he would do something, because he wants to know what's behind those storm-grey eyes, wants to hear Alfie say the words that Tommy is afraid to think about.

Each inhale is a strain, and each exhale is a relief. Tommy feels his heart beat in his throat, feels it in the tips of his fingers and in his head until he can't think of anything else except Alfie because Alfie is looking at him like—like—

"Tommy?" Alfie's voice is so soft, so quiet and Tommy wonders if he imagined it.

"I'm going to Margate," Tommy says, surprising himself as he does.

"What?"

"Margate," Tommy says, and he has never felt so certain of a decision.

* * *

Tommy sets out for Margate the next morning.

Alfie left the evening before, and despite the short hours that have passed since their interlude at the stables, Tommy wants to see him again.

Terribly.

So much so that it's an ache in his throat. It's—pleasant in a way. Pleasant because he knows he's going to see Alfie soon, at his _house_ , at the place where Alfie dwells in between their moments together.

What a thing.

It's a long drive, and not an entirely familiar one. He's been to Margate, of course, though it's almost two months ago now. He hopes he remembers the way.

(But of course he does. Because the last time he drove to Margate, it was to see Alfie at the pier, to kill him with a bullet from his gun. How would Tommy ever forget something like that?)

It's a quaint white house that faces the ocean, Tommy remembers. Close to the pier. And there's a park right beside it with a little blue slide and two sets of swings. It's unmistakable.

And precisely because it's unmistakable that Tommy doesn't know where he's gone wrong when he stops in front of a house that looks abandoned.

Strange.

He gets out of the car and approaches the front door. There's no answer, which doesn't surprise him, considering the state of the place. He heads to the back door and gives it a tug. When it doesn't budge, he considers shooting off the lock with his gun, but thinks better of it.

He peers into a window instead.

There's not much inside. Nothing that suggests any recent inhabitation.

Perhaps Tommy has forgotten where Alfie's house is, after all. Or, what is more likely, Alfie has moved. But where? Another house in this little coastal town, or back to London, or heaven forbid—to a village in Warwickshire and Alfie, the bastard, would rather lead Tommy on a goose chase than admit something this sentimental.

When Tommy reaches a telephone, he calls the Aerated Bread Company in Camden Town and asks for Ollie, because if there's anyone who can tell Tommy where the fuck Alfie has moved to, it should be him.

"What?" Ollie asks dumbly when Tommy raises his question.

"He doesn't live at the beach anymore," Tommy says. "The new address. Do you have it?"

There's a silence on the line, and Tommy wonders what's taking Ollie so long.

"Hello?" Tommy says.

"Um. Are you—is this a joke?"

"Why the fuck would I call you to make a joke?" Tommy asks, pinching the bridge of his nose. "Do you have it or not?"

"Tommy." Ollie sounds grave over the telephone and Tommy's stomach begins to sink. "Alfie's dead. You know this. At the pier. Bullet clean through his skull, do you not..." His voice fades to a silence.

Tommy lets this revelation simmer in his head, lets it pollute his entire being until his hands shake and the world spins off its axis beneath him.

"Hey, are you there?" Ollie says.

"Yeah." Tommy's voice sounds so incredibly normal it shocks him. "I'm fine. Thanks, Ollie."

He hangs up the phone.

* * *

He thinks of Alfie and his voice, his words and his touch. He thinks of the possibilities, of his resting days now that he has someone—Alfie, to share them with.

Fanciful and absurd, of course.

(But it's real. And it makes him happy. Where's the harm in that?)

He misses Alfie, much like the way one might miss a dearly departed.

He thinks of Alfie, and he misses him.

* * *

Tea for two—Mr Shelby has asked Frances again.

She smiles at him and nods, like she always does.

It's easier this way; she doesn't know—doesn't _dare_ imagine what Mr Shelby would do if she questions it.

She walks out of his study, leaving the door hanging slightly ajar, and watches him through the gap. Her heart hammers in her chest. She hears the blood rush in her ears as she observes.

She'll never be used to this.

Charlie remains beside Frances, his hands gripping tightly onto her fingers as he follows her gaze. "What's wrong with daddy?" he asks in a small voice.

She doesn't know either.

What she does know is Mr Shelby isn't getting better.

With quivering hands that Frances tries to keep still, she picks up the telephone and dials for the doctor.

**Author's Note:**

> This idea had been brewing in my head for almost a month now and I finally put it into words. Quite different from what I usually write, but I hope it worked. Not 100% about the execution, but I'm happy with it. If you've any thoughts, feel free to let me know in the comments <3


End file.
